Making It Up As I Go Along #642

Had a snow storm last week. A real one. Don't get many in Ottawa but 50 cms qualifies to me. Barely got home after work. If I didn't have my little car shovel, I wouldn't have even left the parking lot at work. 

Snowshoeing always feels like a bit of an adventure when you're alone and seeing fresh coyote tracks. I know a single coyote shouldn't be a danger but I do keep an eye out… And imagine myself having to use my snowshoe poles to fight off the beast. 

First time Mazda has annoyed me was today.  Bring the car in for a recall.  The letter says it’ll take a half hour.  At the dealer they say more like an hour.  I go for a twenty minute walk before coming back to sit patiently.  At an hour and a half I go to them and ask what’s going on “Oh it’s done, we called out for you”.  The guy I dealt with came out and spoke to several other people sitting only a few feet away from me, and seemingly didn’t notice I was there.  I could have sat there all day, it seems, and they would have just left me alone to watch Ellen on their TV.  I even had my cell phone out in my hand the entire time.  They could have phoned me if I didn’t answer their phantom call in the showroom.  An hour of my life, wasted.  Honestly, in the customer service industry, in Ontario, it seems if you aren’t a bit of a prick to them, the service staff will ignore you.  Or maybe I’ve just got one of those forgettable faces.  Either way, an easy going attitude doesn't really work here.

Training Day

Tomorrow I go a team building

In my office space

Another thing they throw at you

To break up the monotonous pace

I guess I’ll learn to fall back into the arms

Of a dainty coworking friend

I suppose such trust is valuable

Though for me it’ll likely mean the end

We’ll learn to solve vital puzzles

How to cross rivers with with chicken and fox

And of course such lessons are mandatory

I’d gain more at home with the idiot box

Is it so wrong to just want to do

The job for which I’m paid 

They keep wanting to distract my day

Oh home, I’ll wish I’ve stayed

Eight hours of this awful hell

That long to become a good teammate

Oh what is it I’ve done dear Lord

To earn this painful fate?

It’s not as though we’re getting away

For this there’s no ski chalet

No they’ll trudge us to a basement room

Buried from daylight we will stay

Pale in our underground room

Eight hours to go insane

With lessons learned to leak out my ear

The next day will return to the old same.

Making It Up As I Go Along #641

This week brought the coldest day I’ve known of in Ottawa.  But I didn’t feel it.  Yesterday was listed as the coldest feeling day here in twenty years.  I didn't leave the house the entire day.  There was a point where I thought I should venture out for a minute just to feel the -44 windchill… But I decided there was no good reason to do that and watched movies instead.

I have missed the whole four days off thing at work.  It’s been quite nice getting back to it.  Catching up on sleep and feeling no rush to get things done anymore.  The two day weekend always feels rushed to me now.  Got to try to fit everything in on a Friday night to Sunday evening… At the same time as everybody else.  But four on, four off… Fit in a snowshoe one day.  Watch some movies another.  Groceries and other errands can be fit in at leisure.  It’s a nice decompression.  

Winter Trek

Should I venture out today?

Into the frigid blue

Where bare trees stand crispy

Upon the frozen land

Should I crunch across the whiteness?

Across the forested emptiness

Where tiny, fur encased eyes glare

Within  their nut carpeted tree hollows

It’s a death zone now

Even bundled, slowly dying

Knowing my insulation will fail the night

Leaving me brittlely blue by dawn 

Yet an hours worth is pure temptation

To play the adventurer

In Everest climbing temperatures

As my imagination treks Antarctica

While barely out of sight from home

Making It Up As I Go Along #640

First shift back in CPSIC and it felt pretty good.  The day shifts took a long time… Two days felt like a week doing the twelve hours instead of eight.  But the nights went well and the four days off has also felt like a week.  

Not going to be a great deal of free time in Florida this March.  Two baseball games already booked… And now two days with the parents at Cape Canaveral.  Never been there before.  It should be pretty nice to check out.  

The woods are currently pretty close to off limits for walks.  The normal route into them is now gone with the work being done on landscaping the creek area.  There are two  other ways across but lots of heavy equipment going through one way and, besides that, the snow cover is now very icy.  I really need a pair of those shoe grip things you can slide over your boots in order not to break my neck.  Did get lots of exercise clearing the ice out of my driveway, but not much wildlife to be seen there.  That said… There was a dead mouse left on my doorstep yesterday.  Either a cat thinks I’m pretty good… Or I’m being warned of impending doom by a psychopath. 

Brought my Christmas present map of Fogo Island in to get framed yesterday.  The woman at the shop sort of freaked out when she saw what it was.  Fogo is becoming a rockstar of places to visit.  She told me about a documentary she watched on the Inn… About how she get as far as Twillingate but wants to cross over to the island… About how her mother was recently there for a day and loved it… And how she’s seen lots of Fogo Island pictures come through their shop for framing.  When I was running around that place as a kid, playing along the shoreline or in around the stage at low tide, I’d have never in a million years guessed that people from all over the world would make a point of trying to get there for a visit.  By the way… We’ve got a couple nights booked to be on the Island in July.  Even sister shall be there.  Autographs available upon request… Though it’s about time I book the time off at work, and get my plane tickets squared away.  Organizing family vacations is a difficult thing.

Where Have You Gone

Where have you gone

Poor frogs of Mud Creek

Last summer I’d pass you by

Nod a “good morning” as you sat

Sprawled out in the muddy pools

Looking to beat 

The summer heat.

I assume you dug in for winter

As all frogs would do

Burrowing through the mud

Holding out until spring

In a frozen hibernation

I assume you were scooped away

Excavated from your lair

Carted off in a Tonka owners dream 

And unceremoniously dumped

Far from where you’d expect to wake

Will you wake there?

Are you sturdy enough to survive the trip?

Will you slip out from the thawing mud?

Disoriented in your new surroundings?

Or will you forget about last year's home?

And just concentrate on bugs and flies

Or is that distant mound a grave?

The last resting place of your generation

Until you and yours are scooped again

Carted off in more giant Tonka toys

And landscaped at someone's doorstep

There to fertilize their growing lawn.